Book briefs...

Two standard works on Chicago have been reissued.

Ethnic Chicago: A Multicultural Portrait, edited by Melvin G. Holli and Peter d'A. Jones, was first issued in 1977. This collection, published by Eerdmans, offers historical, sociological and personal analysis of Chicago from A to Z — well, from Andersonville, the North Side Swedish neighborhood, to Florence Zeigfield, who established the Zeigfield Follies and the Chicago Academy of Music. The book includes essays on Chicago's African Americans and the Latino, Chinese, Japanese, Asian Indian and Korean immigration that lends diversity to the city, as well as the Irish, German, Jewish, Polish and Ukranian communities. Essays on "ethnic institutions" such as the churches, saloons and cemeteries are new.

The Mayors: The Chicago Political Tradition, edited by Holli and Paul M. Green, was first issued in 1987, when the late Harold Washington was mayor. This edition, published by Southern Illinois University Press, gives the editors a chance to include chapters on Eugene Sawyer and current Mayor Richard M. Daley. It features a survey of historians that ranks all of the city's mayors. Daley's father, Richard J. Daley, was ranked highest, a judgment likely to surprise few students of power in City Hall.

Peter Ellertsen teaches English at Springfield College in Illinois.

October 1995/Illinois Issues/35